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Georg Baselitz "The reality is the picture, it is most certainly not in the picture." SYNOPSIS Georg Baselitz was enormously influential in showing a generation of German artists how they might come to terms with issues of art and national identity in the wake of the Second World War. Briefly trained in the officially sanctioned social realism of Communist East Berlin, he soon moved to West Berlin, and encountered abstract art. Ultimately, however, he was to reject both options. While others turned to Conceptual Art, Pop, and Arte Povera, Baselitz revived the German Expressionism that had been denounced by the Nazis, and returned the human figure to a central position in painting. Controversial when he first emerged in 1963, and controversial again nearly two decades later when he began to produce sculpture, Baselitz inspired a revival of Neo- Expressionist painting in Germany in the 1970s, and his example gave encouragement to many more who took up similar styles both in © The Art Story Foundation – All rights Reserved For more movements, artists and ideas on Modern Art visit www.TheArtStory.org Europe and the United States in the 1980s. KEY IDEAS Many aspects of Baselitz's work represent an attempt to revive symbols of German national identity that were tarnished after World War II. When he was maturing as a painter, the dominant style was a gestural abstraction that looked beyond Germany to international trends, but Baselitz rejected this in favor of Expressionism, a style which is central to his wider efforts. It signalled his desire to connect with a style and tradition that had been denounced by the Nazis. It also affirms his belief in romantic traditions that earlier Expressionists had adopted in protest against aspects of modern life. Although the figure has often been central in Baselitz's painting, his approach to it suggests a deep unease about the possibility of celebrating humanity in the wake of the Holocaust and WWII. Among his early series are images of Heroes, and Partisans, and yet these warriors seem awkward giants, clad in tattered rags. His later strategy of depicting figures upside-down might be read as another recognition of the same difficulty. Baselitz presented himself as a romantic outsider in the Pandemonium manifestoes he penned with fellow painter Eugen Schönebeck in 1962, and his paintings often present figures who have been traditionally seen as outcasts from society. At a time when German society was rebuilding itself in the image of American consumerism, his painting represented a refusal and a protest. In this sense the figures that inhabit his Heroes series might be read as types from an earlier, more romantic era in German history, an era now passed. Although Baselitz's embrace of painting was important in encouraging the medium's revival in the 1970s and 1980s, some believe his style betrays an anxiety about its continued viability in world of mass communication. Rather than delight in the lush effects of oil paint, his handling sometimes suggests awkward © The Art Story Foundation – All rights Reserved For more movements, artists and ideas on Modern Art visit www.TheArtStory.org scratches and smears, an effect which compounds the anguish of the figures he depicts. ARTIST BIOGRAPHY Childhood Georg Baselitz was born Hans-Georg Kern on January 23, 1938 in Deutschbaselitz. His family lived in a flat above a schoolhouse where his father taught elementary students. The school was used as a garrison for soldiers during World War II and was later destroyed during frontline combat with the Russians while the family took refuge in the cellars beneath the building. It was in the school's library where Georg discovered pencil drawings made in the nineteenth century. This initial experience with art inspired Baselitz to create artwork himself. In 1949 he assisted wildlife photographer Helmut Drechsler on ornithological photo shoots, which led to Baselitz's later landscapes of the Saxony countryside, and inspired the painting, Wo ist der gelbe Milchkrug, Frau Vogel (Where is the Yellow Milkjug Mrs Bird?), a piece featuring upside-down yellow birds. Early training In 1950 Baselitz's family moved to Kamens where Georg attended high school. An original sized oleograph of Ferdinand von Rayski's painting Interlude During a Hunt in Wermersdorf Forest hung in the school drill hall, which greatly influenced Baselitz's later work, including his first inverted painting Der Wald auf dem Kopf (The Wood on its Head). Baselitz began to paint during his secondary education, inspired by Neue Sachlichkeit landscape artists. Although he was denied acceptance into the Art Academy in Dresden, he began to study painting under Herbert Behrens-Hangler in 1956 at the Academy of Visual and Applied Art in Weissensee, East Berlin. After attending classes for two terms, Baselitz was expelled on the grounds of "socio- political immaturity". In 1957 he enrolled at the Academy of Visual Arts in Charlottenburg, West Berlin where he became interested in Kazimir Malevich, Wassily Kandinsky, and Ernst-Wilhelm Nay. © The Art Story Foundation – All rights Reserved For more movements, artists and ideas on Modern Art visit www.TheArtStory.org Mature Period Georg Kern adopted the last name Baselitz in 1958 as a tribute to his native Saxony. During this time, Baselitz created a series of imaginary portraits, including Onkel Bernard (Uncle Bernard) and the Rayski Head. The series focused on German identity in the post WWII era and was inspired by war soldiers stationed near Baselitz's home. The paintings were composed of thick, fluid brushstrokes, the individuals appearing more as caricatures rather than traditional realist portraits. It was during this time that Baselitz married Elke Kretzschmar, his studio assistant, who gave birth to their son, Daniel. In the 1960s Baselitz concentrated on specific archetypes in paintings and woodcuts, mostly of rebels, heroes, and shepherds. He became increasingly interested in anamorphosis, the distorted or monstrous representation of an image, as exemplified in the proportions and facial features of his figures. At his first solo exhibition in 1963, many of his more grotesque paintings, such as Der Nackte Mann (Naked Man) and Die grobe Nacht im Eimer (Big Night Down the Drain) were deemed too controversial and were subsequently seized on the grounds of obscenity by the State Attorney. Baselitz continued to reinvent his exaggerated style through experimentation. In an attempt to free style from subject matter, Baselitz created his first inverted (upside-down) painting entitled Der Wald auf dem Kopf (The Wood on its Head) in 1969. Through this upending of image, Baselitz intended to produce painted objects rather than meticulously depicted representations of the real world. © The Art Story Foundation – All rights Reserved For more movements, artists and ideas on Modern Art visit www.TheArtStory.org Late Period Georg Baselitz moved to Derneburg, Germany, in 1975, where he worked as a professor of painting at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Kunste in Karlsruhe and at the Hochschule der Bildenden Kunste in West Berlin. He continued to use painting as his primary medium of expressing himself as apost World War II German, continuing to depict inner emotional turmoil through distorted figures and bold, striking brushwork. Baselitz reinvented his work in 1979 when he began creating monumental wooden sculptures. Similar to his paintings, the sculptures were crude, forceful, and unrefined. He would refrain from "polishing" the work, leaving the surface chipped, scratched, and uneven, adding to the rough hewn appearance. Baselitz's reputation as a visual artist of note was confirmed when was chosen to represent Germany at the Venice Biennale in 1980. There he exhibited his first sculpture, Model for a Sculpture, a crudely carved wooden figure which sparked controversy due to the similarity of its out-raised arm gesture to a Nazi salute. Since the 1990s, he has continued to produce drawings, woodcuts, paintings, and sculptures and has also been an active set designer for operas such as Punch and Judy at the Dutch Opera in Amsterdam. In 1995 his first major retrospective in the United States was held at the Guggenheim in New York City. Georg Baselitz currently lives and works in Munich and Imeria. LEGACY Covering nearly every artistic medium, Georg Baselitz has established © The Art Story Foundation – All rights Reserved For more movements, artists and ideas on Modern Art visit www.TheArtStory.org himself as a visual artist of international stature. His work confronts the visceral reality of history and tragedy of being German in a post World War II era. Baselitz was best known for his inverted, or upside-down paintings that shift emphasis from subject to the properties of painting itself, creating not just a painted canvas, but a nearly sculptural object. The anamorphic quality of his heroic and rebellious figures has had a powerful and international influence on Neo-Expressionist artists. Original content written by The Art Story Contributors ARTIST QUOTES "I begin with an idea, but as I work, the picture takes over. Then there is the struggle between the idea I preconceived... and the picture that fights for its own life." "The artist is not responsible to any one. His social role is asocial... his only responsibility consists in an attitude to the work he does." "I don't like things that can be reproduced. Wood isn't important in itself but rather in the fact that objects made in it are unique, simple, unpretentious." Major Works: Title: Die grobe Nacht im Eimer (Big Night down the Drain) (1963) Materials: Oil on canvas Collection: Museum Ludwig, Cologne Description: Die grobe Nacht im Eimer or Big Night Down the Drain depicts a young boy, perhaps a self-portrait of the artist, holding an exaggerated phallus, and is one of Baselitz's most controversial paintings.
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